La Comida del Barrio: Latin-American Cooking in the U.S.A.

Author Aaron Sanchez was at the South Beach Food and Wine festival last week and was FANTASTIC! He made recipes from the book and made traditional dishes like mole effortless. His personality and love of cooking and tradition clearly showed.

Because I am Latin American I found these recipes to be familiar. I was looking for a cookbook that had traditional meals and I found it in this book. Having my share of cookbooks, I actually found this book to be one of the easiest. As I write this review, I am marinating a Pork Shoulder with Oregano, Salt, Galic and Olive Oil. It really can't get much easier than that. But if you are looking for quick easy cooking during the week, this might not be the best cookbook for you. My one complaint about this book is that it does not have any pictures of the food itself. For those that have never eaten or seen these recipes cooked it can be pretty hard to imagine what it's suppose to look like. Also, being familiar with these recipes I know what to leave out and what substitues I can use.

This is a great book for latinos learning to cook the foods their families made. This is not however a "traditional" cookbook for regional dishes. These recipes were as close to my mothers recipes and she's a great cook. If you want to make various dishes from Latin America, this is the book for you.